Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) on Wednesday assured to supply eight hours of power to the farmers for paddy transplantation, beginning June 10 to 17 in a phased manner.

The assertion came after a meeting of the PSPCL distribution wing was held regarding arrangements for the upcoming paddy season. The state Power Minister Harbhajan Singh, PSPCL chairman-cum-managing director (CMD) Baldev Singh Sran, Director Distribution DPS Grewal held the meeting with Chief Engineers, Superintending Engineers, Executive engineers of the Distribution and Grid Operation and Maintenance wings.

The meeting was in consonance with the Chief Minister’s commitment to ensure uninterrupted and regular power supply to the farmers in paddy season and to maintain the distribution of power to industries and other consumers at the same time.

Patting the back of the officials working hard to provide round-the-clock power to every section of the consumers, the Minister directed the officials to perform their duty with honesty with an aim to provide selfless services to the state’s power consumers as per Chief Minister’s commitment.

The Minister stressed on the importance of the safety of the field workers and directed the senior officers to ensure that proper safety equipment is provided to all line staff.

“Distribution officers should attend to the grievances intimated by the consumers on the telephone and should try their best to promptly address power-related issues of the consumers through Whatsapp groups where the prominent persons such as leaders of farmer unions, Industrial Associations, or Resident welfare associations, Sarpanch, or members of village etc may be added,” he said.

The Minister assured that all esteemed consumers of the Corporation would be provided continued, uninterrupted, and quality power supply in Punjab.

Transplantation in the areas beyond barbed wire along the international border will start from June 10, followed by 10 districts — Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, SBS Nagar, Kapurthala, Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Rupnagar, SAS Nagar, in the second phase from June 13. In the remaining 13 districts of Bathinda, Barnala, Faridkot, Sri Muktsar Sahib, Patiala, Sangrur, Malerkotla, Ludhiana, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ferozepur, Mansa, Moga, Fazilka, transplantation will start from June 17.